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#MarketingTitbits – hashtags, social analytics tools, SEO tips

hashtags-analytics-SEO-smaller1. Use hashtags to generate greater brand engagement
Are hashtags a fad? Their growing popularity has seen them start to overtake the infamous Facebook ‘like’ button for brands looking to drive consumer engagement. Such is growing obsession over hashtag creation for brands, that some are even employing ‘specialists’ in the field. They may seem like clever creations, but if the brand doesn’t generate any actual positive engagement via this process is there any purpose to them?

Take the hashtag #FirstDraftEver for example – it featured on an ad for ‘Avocados from Mexico’ in what was their first appearance at the Super Bowl. It generated 25,000 mentions in the first 24 hours. This may sound impressive, but the problem was that many Tweets didn’t mention the Mexican brand itself. So did it drive brand awareness?

If you’d like to read more about how hashtags can be used to boost your brand, click here.

2. Five tips for picking the right social analytics tool

Have you ever considered the use of a social analytics tool for your business? If you’re in need of help, Econsultancy has created a few tips to help you along the way.

When using social analytics tools, it is important to focus on how business goals can be achieved rather than social goals. Ask yourself questions – what problems can be solved? What price gives your business the best value? These are important considerations that will lead to a successful investment in tech.

To see the full list of tips on social analytics, click here.

3. 32 simple SEO tips for small businesses

SEO can be a complicated concept for many people to grasp, but the good people at Econsultancy have put together a great list of tips, you can be sure to come away with some valuable insights you can implement straight away. We’re outlining just a few!

Firstly, by creating a blog, you can update your site frequently with valuable content that is interesting and engaging for readers, which in turn will build a strong online presence for your business. Another idea would be to take a look at your competitors; see what they are doing in terms of keywords and site optimisation and how you can improve upon them in order to stand out from the crowd and give people a worthwhile user experience.

To find out more about SEO and how your business can improve, you can check out the list of tips by clicking here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Google Analytics, Virgin’s vacation policy, email marketing

analytics-vacations-emails-smaller1. Seven Google Analytics tips for beginnersGoogle Analytics is an invaluable tool for businesses to use to understand their websites and its engagement with visitors. The level of insight it can provide is staggering; however, for those unfamiliar with it, it can be slightly daunting when you first visit the page. Luckily we have some tips to help you plough your way through and make the most of this useful tool.

Setting goals around session duration, pages viewed per session and customer events is a great place to start. You can also receive email alerts just so you don’t miss a thing that happens on your site. And don’t forget to connect to your AdWords account!

To find more tips click here.

2. Virgin’s Unlimited Vacation policy: PR ploy or new employment paradigm?

Richard Branson is known to be an innovative, forward-thinking and publicity savvy business leader but last week he took things to a new level with the idea of unlimited vacations.  Although this may seem like a dream situation for employees it also raises some interesting questions about how to make it practical.

On one hand it empowers employees with the flexibility to holiday whenever they wish, which potentially makes for a happier work force. Equally, it demonstrates Virgin’s trust in their staff. However, it also raises lots of questions around the practicalities of the initiative and the stress the rest of the team are placed under when a key team member is away.

So is this just another clever publicity stunt, designed to get people talking about the Virgin brand, or is it an example of an enlightened employer looking to do the best for his employees? For more information on the unlimited vacation, click here.

3. Why is email seen as the poor relation in digital marketing?

Since the email was created in 1972 by Raymond Tomlinson, it has been a vital tool used by marketers to reach out and engage with their customers and target audience. But as ‘digital marketing’ becomes ever more complex, questions are being asked about how effective email marketing is for companies?

According to a recent Email Marketing Industry Census from Econsultancy, the percentage of organisations that are sending over 1m emails has increased from 15% to 22% in the last 5 years but the survey showed that average annual e-marketing spends had stayed fairly static at £5,000. The survey indicated there is a perception that e-marketing is a cheap, but low value marketing tool and not particularly valued as highly as other digital marketing channels. However, when analysing the ROI from e-marketing, the survey found some surprising results.

To find out more, click here.

 

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Marketing Titbits – Pinterest analytics, hashtags for Facebook and Dropbox

Pinterest Analytics:
If you have a very visual website, with lots of imagery that visitors might like to share with their friends, family, colleagues or business network, have you started exploring how the latest social media phenomenon, Pinterest, could be utilised to increase web traffic and awareness amongst your target audience? If not, you can find out a bit more here about how it works.

The nature of Pinterest is such that you might already be benefiting from your visitors sharing your website imagery, without you even realising it. Such is the rapid growth of Pinterest, over 12 million unique users per month, that it is quickly gaining entry to the top table of the social media kingdom, alongside the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn. To highlight its growing influence, Pinterest has recently launched its own analytics software, which will show website owners just Pinterest users are interacting with their website. It will include information like:

  • How many people have pinned from your site
  • How many people have seen these pins
  • How many people visited your site from Pinterest
  • Most repinned, most clicked, and most recent pins

For more information on Pinterest Analytics click here.

#Hashtags coming to Facebook?:

Once synonymous with Twitter, there are now rumours that Facebook might be building in hashtagging capabilities into its social network architecture. The new facility would enable Facebookers to tune in and participate in the public discussion of topics across the social networking site, in much the same way users of Twitter can do currently.

The facility is already incorporated into Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, so it is likely we will see this development in the not too distant future.

If your wondering what all this hashtagging is about, here’s a brief overview from theGuardian’s Technology Blog.

Dropbox:

There are very few ‘must haves’ in our opinion, but Dropbox is something we can’t live without and we think if you try it, you’ll agree.

Dropbox is a free service that, put simply, lets you access all your documents, images, videos and files anywhere. When you save any file in your Dropbox, it will automatically sync to all your computers, phones, tablets and the Dropbox website. It is a great way to back up important files.

However, we find the real value is in the ability it gives us to share files (particularly large ones) with our clients and team. Need a client to go through a brochure file too big to email? No problem, share it with them securely through Dropbox. Need to share a large document with a co-worker working from home and you’ve not got a server? Again, no problem, use Dropbox.

Its integration across all our technology, including PCs, laptops, mobiles and tablets has made our lives so much easier. We hope you benefit in the same way. Learn more here.

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